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Max Mayfield decided she was going to be a better girlfriend on a Wednesday.
It wasn’t a dramatic epiphany. No lightning bolt, no cosmic soundtrack. Just a stupid, boring Wednesday where she woke up and realized (well not so suddenly) she was tired of the quiet distance she’d built around herself like a wall.
Lucas had never asked her to change. He never even brought up the breakup unless she did, and even then, he tiptoed around it like the ground might explode. He just stayed. Patient, steady, annoyingly kind.
And Max, who’d spent months pushing him away out of fear she’d hurt him again, suddenly hated how much she’d wasted.
So she made a plan.
A secret plan.
A Max-Mayfield-brand improvement project, which mostly meant:
Trying. Even when it’s embarrassing. Try even when she wants to run. Try because Lucas deserves someone who doesn’t hide every feeling.
And because she missed him.
God, she missed him, and she could not mess this up. Again.
1. She Shows Up to His Basketball Practices
The gym smelled like sweat, dust, and fluorescent lights. Max hated it immediately. But she climbed the bleachers anyway, backpack slung over her shoulder, her knee still aching from physical therapy.
Down below, Lucas dribbled the ball with a focus that made his eyebrows pinch together. He looked older these days — taller, more solid, quieter in the way people get when they go through too much too fast.
At first she sits in the highest bleacher seat, hoodie up, pretending she’s “bored.”
Over time she moves closer to the court. Stops pretending she's not paying attention.
Eventually She sat where she new he’d see her. Him and evryone else on his team.
Not hiding. Not pretending she wasn’t there.
The first time she came Lucas was clearly very shocked to see her when his teamate tapped him and pointed her out
The ball slipped from his hands. Literally rolled away from him. He froze for half a second, staring at her like she’d materialized out of thin air.
Then he jogged over.
“You… came?”
Max shrugged. “Yeah. I was bored.”
His smile said he didn’t buy that for a second.
“You want water?” he asked.
“I didn’t come to be babysat.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were thinking it.”
He grinned. “Okay, maybe.”
She tried not to smile. Failed.
He ran back to practice with that stupid bright face that made something warm flare painfully in her chest.
If showing up was Step One, it wasn’t a bad start.
2. She Makes an Effort With His Friends
Max didn’t hate the basketball team. She just disliked most people on principle.
But one day when practice ended, one of Lucas’s teammates — Jared — walked over.
“Hey, you’re Max, right? Lucas talks about you.”
“God, I’m sorry."
Lucas made a strangled sound. "I don’t — I mean — not like—"
Jared laughed. “He said you’re cool. And that you skate."
Max blinked. “He said that?”
Lucas turned scarlet.
“Wow,” she said, smirking. “Didn’t know you bragged about me.”
“I don’t brag.”
“You do a little.”
“Okay maybe—”
“Awww,” Dustin said loudly from the doors of the gymnasium coming to meet them after heelfire so they can all bike over Mike's.
Max threw a pencil at him.
3. She Comes to a Game (and doesn't hide in the crowd)
It wasn’t just one game. It was every game she could manage. She even made signs for the first one — badly drawn ones, crooked letters, paint smudges. It looked like something a kindergarten class made on a sugar high.
She still held it up.
As his teams line passes her seat in the front row. He's shocked to see a poster with his name on its and slightly more shocked when he sees who's holding it.
“MAX,” Lucas hissed, embarrassed and delighted at the same time. “You didn’t need to—”
“Shut up and play, Sinclair.”
He played like he had something to prove.
Later, he pretended he hadn’t tried a bit harder because she was there.
She pretended she believed him.
4. The Cheer Stunt (Yes… Cheer.)
The school’s cheer squad needed a last-minute substitute for one game. Will and Erica had been with her as she paused mid stride seeing the advert on the bulletin board. Erica said she wouldn’t survive twenty minutes.
Max rolled her eyes and signed up.
She told no one, and made both of them promise to let it be a surprise.
El screams when she sees Max in the uniform.
Dustin almost falls off the side of bleachers. And Mike just gapes at her not believing his eyes.
When Lucas finally looks up from his seat on the bench catching his breath during half time. He nearly spit out his water when he spotted her walking into the gym holding pom-poms and in the short green hawking's Cheer uniform.
“MAX? What— what are you doing?” he said as she got closer
“Supporting my boyfriend. Obviously.”
His face did something soft — surprised, overwhelmed, almost teary.
He covered it with a laugh, but she’d seen it.
The girls had taught her the routine in 2 days, just really a side dancer to the main routine, and she messed up quite a few steps but overall she'd say she wasnt bad, but Lucas kept sneaking glances at her like she’d hung the moon.
The last part of the routine was her favourite cause she knew but because she knows it would make Lucas’s brain short-circuit in the best way, as she did a pretty good cartwheel as the girls on the team had told her and feel into the splits she'd just disovered she could do the other day.
She keeps her eyes on lucas as she ends eating up the mix of lovesick and hot and bothered look on his face.
Its Embarrassing.
Yet Warm.
And Worth every bruise.
Afterward, he met her behind the bleachers.
“That was… wow.”
“Don’t expect me to do it again.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Actually well ill totally dream of this” he says playfully.
He brushed her knuckles with his.
She didn’t pull away.
(And she never does it again, but Lucas remembers it forever.)
5. She Tries PDA (Her Version)
Max wasn’t a hand-holder. Touch was complicated.
She hates big sappy displays, but she forces herself to try because Lucas likes reassurance
But one afternoon, outside the school as theyre making their way in, Lucas reached for her hand with a shy, slow motion like he was worried she would flinch.
But she doesnt.
In fact, before his hand can reach hers she grabs his and laced their fingers together first.
Lucas blinked. “Are you okay? You’re… being nice.”
“I can be nice.”
“Oh, I know. Just… rare.”
She elbowed him. “Shut up.”
He squeezed her hand. “Not a chance.”
She let him.
She doesnt stop after that. No.
-
She takes his hand first.
-
She leans her head on his shoulder in the cafeteria.
-
She kisses his cheek in front of the Party and pretends it’s “no big deal.”
-
She corrects people when they assume they’re “just friends.”
Lucas blushes every time.
Max smirks like she’s winning.
6. She Listens When He Talks About Scary Stuff
Lucas didn’t talk about the hospital.
Not much.
Not about when he thought he’d lost her.
Not about the blood.
Not about holding her hand and screaming for her to wake up.
He held all of it inside like he didn’t deserve to say it out loud.
One night after homework — her house dark, her mom working late — he said quietly:
“I still think about it.”
Max didn’t joke.
Didn’t deflect.
She closed her notebook and said, “Me too.”
And for once, they weren’t the girl who almost died and the boy who almost watched it happen.
They were just two kids sitting on a floor, breathing through their ghosts.
7. She Apologizes — For Real This Time
She didn’t like apologizing. It felt like peeling off armor.
But she owed him this.
They were sitting at the junkyard, legs hanging off the hood of Billy’s old car. The air tasted like rust.
“Lucas?”
“Yeah?”
She stared at the dirt. “I’m sorry. For pushing you away. For… everything.”
He didn’t jump to forgive her. Didn’t tell her it was fine when it wasn’t.
He said, “Thank you,” in a soft, steady voice.
Then: “We’ll figure things out. Together. If you want that.”
Max swallowed. “I do.”
“Good,” he said. “Because I wasn’t going anywhere.”
She nudged his shoulder. “You’re annoyingly loyal.”
“Yeah, well. Someone’s gotta be."
8. She actually communicates
It’s clumsy, awkward, and sometimes sounds like an apology disguised as an insult.
“Hey… about earlier… I wasn’t ignoring you. I just… zoned out. Sorry,”
or
“I don’t want to fight. I just didn’t know how to say it.”
Lucas takes every single attempt seriously.
9. She lets him take care of her—but she also takes care of him
Max starts noticing when Lucas is stressed.
She shows up with snacks, or pulls him outside during study nights, or says:
“You don’t always have to be the strong one, you know.”
It means more to him than she realizes
10. She’s present on the hard days, not just the good ones
When Lucas has a rough game, or fights with his parents, or stresses about college, Max:
listens
doesn’t joke
doesn’t run
doesn’t shut down
Just sits beside him and lets him talk.
That’s huge for her.
11. Max works on her temper
She still snaps sometimes, but she apologizes quicker.
She still storms out but comes back.
She still gets overwhelmed but tries to explain.
Lucas notices every bit of progress.
12. She tells him she loves him first
Not in a dramatic way.
More like:
“You know I love you, right?
Just in case… I never say it enough.”
Lucas freezes.
Max rolls her eyes and socks him in the shoulder.
13. She lets other people see how much she cares
Not hiding it.
Not pretending.
Not shutting Lucas out.
The Party sees the difference immediately.
Dustin: “Max 2.0 is less angry!”
Max: “Say that again and I’ll deck you.”
And Lucas grins, because that’s his girl.
15. She Lets Herself Be Happy With Him
It happened slowly.
In tiny, stupid moments.
Sharing Skittles on her porch.
Arguing about movie endings.
Skating circles while he timed her.
Grinning when he lectured her about safety gear.
Letting him walk her home even when she insisted she was fine.
Letting herself laugh again.
Letting herself feel again.
Letting Lucas in.
Not because she needed saving.
But because she finally understood she didn’t have to do everything alone.